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Chuckie Egg is one of those games that has managed, against all the odds, to stand the test of time. If ever proof were needed that it's the gameplay that takes precedence over graphics and sound, Chuckie Egg, along with Tetris and Pipemania, is one of the first exhibits that illustrates the point. One of the very first independent Electron games, it's a platformer in which you must control Hen House Harry and, on each screen, collect up a dozen eggs. Patrolling the platforms are some "birdlike" creatures which walk on their hind legs and tower over Harry; they cannot be jumped and simply follow set routes. This means that, like the ghosts in the original Pac-Man, they can be avoided if you learn those routes.

The basic formula of the game is the same no matter which 8-bit computer you may choose to play it on (and it was released for all of them) but the Electron version remains my firm favourite. It runs in the Electron's four colour low-resolution mode at a speed that infuses the player with kinetic energy. Those birds may be too tall to be leaped directly but that doesn't prevent Harry bounding over the gaps in the platforms, or bouncing from ladder to ladder. Deft use of the up, down and jump keys is usually enough to outwit any stupid birds in your vicinity, and you can even gain healthy bonus points by diversifying your quest to not only include eggs but also the piles of seed scattered throughout each screen. Harry moves about two and a half times faster than the birds, allowing you to scoot up to them, steal their lunch from almost underneath their pecking beaks and make good your escape. It's all very satisfying.

Indeed, Chuckie Egg has endured the past four decades so well that it's hard to consider it anything less than a game of pure perfection. Particularly so on the Electron, it quite effortlessly seems to get almost each individual element of the playing experience exactly right. Harry can fall from any height without taking damage. He can leap off the end of a platform and his downward arc can lead him to safety by means of ricocheting "pinball-style" off the edges of platforms he connects with. Alternatively, with perfect timing employed, he can leap from a cornered position onto a passing elevator. The player decides what to do in nano-seconds, acting and reacting as each new manic opportunity presents itself to get to the next egg faster.

Throughout the first eight screens, a large hen in a cage watches you from afar. On level nine, she is suddenly released, homing in on you like a heat-seeking missile with her only mission being your obliteration. This sudden change in pace was utterly unexpected to many early players back in the day, and almost distracted them completely from the fact that the birds had disappeared and the levels had wrapped around. At level nineteen, they wraparound again - only they pit you against the birds and the hen!

Graphics are functional rather than anything special and the little jingles that accompany a game start and infrequent deaths are a nice touch rather than anything special. But this game is totally addictive in a way that few others are. For example, every few screens or so, you are rewarded with a bonus life, so by the time you reach those higher, more difficult ones, you can have stacked up so many of them that you're able to give even those murderously difficult ones a good try.

Indeed, some players have even managed to learn all the routes of all of the birds and the hen on every single screen, meaning they are able to achieve scores and levels of which Chuckie Egg's creator probably never even considered possible. That fact alone reveals the hopeless addiction that many people have to this game. The reviewers of the time knew it too; every version including the Electron one received uniformly universal praise.

The really good news, if you fancy getting ahold of Chuckie Egg, is that this terrific game is pretty ubiquitous. In 1983, A & F Software struggled to keep up with demand (And they never repeated the success they had with any of their later titles!) but clearly eventually produced so many thousands of copies of the game that very many second hand Electron packages on eBay have a copy of Chuckie Egg included.

It comes in a standard cassette box with the familiar black label with illustration style of many A & F titles, although there is also a much rarer release of it by Pick 'N Choose. Expect to pay £1 or so for either version (the only difference is the cover art) and it probably goes without saying that not only will you be getting a bargain but also a game that you'll truly enjoy.